Bengaluru: Tempers are clearly frayed in the Congress following its drubbing in the Lok Sabha polls in the state. When senior Congress leaders met Thursday night in the city to discuss the current political situation in Karnataka, they did some plainspeaking, and squarely blamed AICC general secretary, K C Venuogopal and former Chief Minister, Siddaramaiah for its poor show, according to party sources.
Senior leaders like Kagodu Thimmappa, S.R. Patil and Motamma were reportedly harsh on Mr Venugopal and Mr Siddaramaiah for their handling of the elections and told them they had caused so much damage to the party that it could take a long time for it to recover.
All three senior leaders pointed out that never in the history of the state Congress had the party suffered such a defeat in the Lok Sabha elections, according to sources. Mr Thimmappa is said to have been particularly critical of Mr Siddaramaiah for not holding wider consultations on party affairs, including selection of candidates for the elections or on forming an alliance with the JD(S) to contest the polls.
Going by sources, Mr Patil trained his guns on both Mr Venugopal and Mr Siddaramaiah, saying the two had used him like a football and then dumped him. The way he was treated had sent a wrong signal down the ranks,he argued.
As for Mr Venugopal, he said he compared poorly with former AICC general secretary in- charge of Karnataka, Madhusoodan Mistry, who had handled the state's affairs far better.
Mr Patil is said to have regretted that although Mr Venugopal had on taking charge given the impression that he would not cow down to then Chief Minister, Siddaramaiah, he had given in to him constantly. Mr Thimmappa is said to have argued that Mr D.K. Suresh won from Bengaluru Rural not because he was a Congress candidate, but because of his personal rapport with the people of the constituency.
At one point the criticism of Mr Siddaramaiah was so bad that he had no choice but to beat a hasty retreat and leave the meeting early, according to sources.
